I’m actually with Heras here. No, I do not claim I believe he was clean. But I believe his employers need to honor their half of the employment agreement, especially if that agreement is unilaterally made by the employer. (Here, I am considering all of the race structure that benefits from Heras’ work as an employee to be, loosely, his “employer”. Hence WADA/UCI written rules regarding drugs in the workplace, including the testing and sanctioning, need to be upheld as written. A test that is not conducted per those rules should be tossed. And it is WADA/UCI that should be tossing them before they even see the light of day. And word then does down to all involved in the testing that someone screwed up, this is what happened, and we had to let a known cheater go. Let’s not let that happen again.

I’m not a drug expert or rocket scientist, but I cannot for the life of me see why following your own code is so difficult. And if it is, then rewrite the code to something you can do.

I realize that this was not UCI that conducted the tests here. Still, UCI could well have had a separate, ethical drug testing unit with clearly spelled out rules for all who conduct races under its umbrella to follow. And with that, everyone would know what was expected. Races, riders, teams. All above board. I know the testing has come a long way since then. But this is about simply by playing by one’s own rules. Pretty basic stuff.

I like seeing a civil court ruling against a very corrupt/inept system.

Granted, I am assuming what appeared in print after a trial was 1) what was found in the trial and 2) that it is indeed fact. I take what I wrote here back if the facts of the link were wrong; especially about the time and temperature issues of the sample.

Oh, I forgot when I wrote this that Hera's legal team claimed that the tester knew whose "B" sample they were testing. If I recall correctly, judgement was required in reading the test results in those days. If that is the case, honoring the second positive is just plain wrong. (A lot like the Landis "B" sample. The entire world knew that "B" sample better be positive!) Again, ethical behavior by the officials? Really easy. "Under protocol, the "B" results do not confirm the "A" results. The race results stand." End of story. And if the "A" results were properly not disclosed to the public, no big deal. (Now, for certain tester and race officials, this should be a very big deal, like about future employment!)

In some respects, his case is not that dissimilar from Flandis. Flandis got jobbed by the system. There was acceptance that the initial test was flawed, but that flawed first test triggered the second test, which is what sealed his fate.

With a proper cyclists' union he would never have been disemployed, guilty or not. A cyclists' union would ensure that proper procedures and processes are followed. Long overdue to bring some sanity to cycling where riders are treated like dirty laundry.